A very interesting variant on CLIPPERS which may offer more research clues has recently appeared. In the paper, "Neurotropic T-cell lymphocytosis : a cutaneous expression of CLIPPERS", a patient is described who satisfies the current diagnostic criteria for CLIPPERS. However, in addition this person also suffered from sub-cutaneous ("beneath skin") lesions for some years before, and after, their CLIPPERS diagnosis. The authors points out the similarities in the composition of the skin lesions compared with what is observed in CLIPPERS brain lesions. They make the point that sampling tissue outside the brain to test for CLIPPERS would be very helpful for diagnosis. However, in this case a brain biopsy for direct comparison was not available so at least one key part of the puzzle is currently missing.
This is certainly the only case like this that I have read about; the observations are intriguing. I think that time will tell whether this turns out to be a key insight or an interesting aside.
Read other articles in this series at Living With CLIPPERS.
Living With CLIPPERS by Bill Crum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
